Your Voice: Center For Politics Not Critical Force

July 28, 2003|By GORDON MORSE Contributing Editor

Public interest

The University of Virginia Center for Politics needs to get serious about politics. Or at least about Virginia politics.

The latest installment of the "Governor's Project" -- an annual confab that purports to examine recent gubernatorial administrations -- began and ended as the other five did: a peaceful, pleasant stroll down memory lane, that generally avoided anything unpeaceful and unpleasant.

In other words, it avoided, danced around and skipped past the real politics, the real choices that have, for better or worse, shaped Virginia over the last decade.

The center, a creation of U.Va Professor Larry Sabato, wants to "strengthen American democracy" by promoting "the value of politics."

But the center also apparently wants to be liked. And supported financially, you know, and by some of the same personalities and political interests that it should be rigorously and unflinchingly examining.

The center flinches all over the place, as was visibly the case (again) during the recent conference on the administration of Democratic Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

There were plenty of references to and reminiscences about Wilder's historic election, and the former governor himself gave a thoughtful address.

It became perfectly obvious during the panel discussions that a number of the participants, including Sabato, had stopped discussing politics and started playing politics. It became less about history and more about real-time, self-serving spin.

Interpreting the significance of Wilder's 1989 election to governor matters beyond its obvious symbolism as a turning point in race relations. It also represented a turning point in Virginia's governing philosophy.

Two great public issues have long driven Virginia: race and resources. On the former, though there's distance left to travel, progress is indisputable; on the latter, on the acquisition and use of public revenue and fiscal philosophy, Virginia has severely regressed.

It's not that confusing, but you have Sabato himself -- a brilliant teacher and an acknowledged expert on national politics -- saying back in 1993, after the election of Republican George Allen, that "Virginia (had) moved back to its traditionalist, conservative moorings. After 12 years of experimenting (with Democratic leadership), Virginia decided to return to tried and true recipes."

That happens to be wrong. The continuity of Democratic leadership ended with the Gerald Baliles administration that preceded Wilder's (and employed me, I hasten to add) and the introduction by Wilder of a style of politics seen throughout the South for eons, but previously resisted in Virginia: populism.

And there was nothing tried and true about it.

Wilder entered office facing a severe recession and plunging state revenues. He cut billions out of the state budget and famously avoided raising taxes. That part was a traditional Virginia response to an economic turn down.

Not traditional was Wilder's loud insistence that previous fiscal policy -- meaning that of his party colleagues and predecessors -- involved irresponsible and unnecessary spending.

That tack, from which Wilder has never deviated, represented a Republican dream come true. Here was a repudiation of Democratic stewardship not coming from a partisan Republican mouth, but that of a most prominent and celebrated Democrat: Wilder.

Wilder effectively broke with a working, governing consensus that had endured since the 1960s -- heretofore accepted by Democrats and Republican governors alike -- that Virginia would lift its fortunes by incrementally and steadily investing in the intellectual growth of its people and the efficacy of movement, i.e. schools and roads.

Gov. George Allen, upon his election, welcomed in the rest of the populist beast.

The 1990s saw a wholesale betrayal of Virginia's public interests. But no one disputes the political efficacy of populism. Wilder saw its electoral potential, as did a long-frustrated Virginia Republican Party. The GOP was swept into power on the strength of politics that appealed to public fears and anger, while making promises that could not be kept.

The House of Delegates is now dominated by right wing, free-lunch, populist neophytes.

Accordingly, monied interests and public policy, always snuggly in Virginia, have never been more intimate.

Some of these same interests are bankrolling the Center for Politics.

The center has opted to ride with the tide and look for money where it can find it. But that's a problem for the center's stated goals. It cannot usefully explain if it is not willing to fearlessly examine.

Morse is a contributing editor of the editorial page. Send e-mail to gordoncmorse@cox.net